February 2016

02/26/2016

We had the best gastro-flu event this week. It was a) limited to Georgia (am I just jinxing the rest of us? probably) and b) it lasted for 12 hours. Now the first six or seven hours were really gruesome, and I won't get into them because everyone has carried their poor ghost-white child (or ourselves) to the toilet a couple of times an hour on the hour through the night and dry-heaving is the worst feeling.

But then Georgia started keeping liquids down. Then she was hungry. And Georgia being Georgia, she had no time for our cautious approach to reintroducing solids. "I am hungry, and when I am hungry and people are telling me I can't eat, I am very angry. I get angry when I'm hungry." So of course we caved in and it was all fine and no more barfs.

But the best part was G's incessant chattering, her delight at being home all day and being cared for, having her orders responded to so quickly. And the reading. The big favourite yesterday was Michael Chabon's The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man. This is THE BEST BOOK, and it involves the funniest play on words you could ever imagine (Awesome Man gets "pooped" from all his battles, and he admits he adores saying that word). We have about three books in our house that both kids have been really into at some point in time. Awesome Man joins The Curious Little Witchand Stanley's Partyin this regard (oh, and Phoebe Gilman's The Balloon Tree). These ones are so rewarding to read to both kids at the same time.

Also, what mother in the world doesn't love spooning the first bites of broth with soggy Saltine crackers into their sick but recovering child? And opening and closing your mouth as you do, in tandem with them.

02/24/2016

I like the tooth fairy better than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. First, she's all good with the lowercase 't' and 'f.' You would not find EB or SC (especially) too comfy with that sort of treatment. They are really big-time players, and there's always a bit of ego around that, there just is. They are colourful, yes, benevolent, maybe. But not soft and tiny and hardly-thereish as the tf.

Yes, there are knocks against the tooth fairy. The fumbling and stumbling she sometimes requires in the middle of the night, the panicked 3 am bolt-upright shaking of one parent by the other, then the blaming and shaming. There is maybe once or twice that.

But, treated right, the tooth fairy is this magical nocturnal creature who comes in very quietly to make little kids feel a lot better about growing up, about not being quite so little anymore. About literally, a piece of their body going away and a bigger, permanent piece coming in to take its place, maybe not so cute and gorgeous, maybe with a slant and maybe more than a slant.

And the tooth fairy sometimes leaves notes to make the kids feel proud of how they're taking care of themselves and their responsibilities, and she thanks them for trusting her with their precious possession. Because they are giving it away.

And there is the routine: the next tooth and the next, and the notes the kid leaves for her, the maps to the tooth, the detailed instructions to find it if its smallness should get lost under the pillow. And the "Sind, Oliver."

Then we wake up. A twoonie has never shined brighter, and can you believe how small a fairy can write. You can hardly see it.

A couple of days ago Oliver called out Georgia on her pronunciation of "supposed to." George says "apposed to" and I love that so I jumped on O when he tried to tell her she was saying it wrong. She's five, and I still want to hear "apposed." I also want to hear "bumember" instead of "remember."

I have had to say goodbye forever to "dweaming," "lellow," and "wight and wong." Georgia's woom is now a room and wainbows are rainbows.